Arms For Britian (WW 2)
Wonder how many of you recall the British asking for American Sportsmen
to donate civilian weapons for their Civilian Defence Units in early
WW 2. Cant help but recall back in early WW 2 when England begged the U.S. for our civilian guns for Civiian Deffence use in capturing downed Nazi airmen shot down over england and other Civilian Defence uses. Multi thousands of guns were donated by the U.S. sportsmen and shipped over to England with no payment. Now many European countries want US to give up our arms.
Makes one wonder. How easy to forget that a unarmed civilian is nearly usleless sometimes.
to donate civilian weapons for their Civilian Defence Units in early
WW 2. Cant help but recall back in early WW 2 when England begged the U.S. for our civilian guns for Civiian Deffence use in capturing downed Nazi airmen shot down over england and other Civilian Defence uses. Multi thousands of guns were donated by the U.S. sportsmen and shipped over to England with no payment. Now many European countries want US to give up our arms.
Makes one wonder. How easy to forget that a unarmed civilian is nearly usleless sometimes.
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If I remember correctly, the arms that were shipped over (many were family heirlooms) were never returned.
They were placed on ships and sunk in the middle of the atlantic0 -
I remember hearing of this story, Joe.
It is funny to hear the British discuss the Virginia shooting. They are so proud of being disarmed.
Being disarmed works great, until you need a gun.0 -
quote:Originally posted by Rack Ops
If I remember correctly, the arms that were shipped over (many were family heirlooms) were never returned.
They were placed on ships and sunk in the middle of the atlantic
Is that something that "somebody" told you, or do you have a link or reference to it.?
I have heard that many of the loaned firearms didn't make it back, but I know that some did. I knew of one family .22 rifle that was returned to St Marys, Ks. I have seen others that were serial #rd and rechambered to .22 Long Rifle and proofed that came back to the U.S. Just curious, because I never heard the sunken ship story.0 -
quote:Originally posted by wundudnee
Is that something that "somebody" told you, or do you have a link or reference to it.?
As I recall, I read about it in an NRA magazine. I'll see if I can dig something up0 -
Very interesting, Joe. If they ever need them again....Uhhh, I don't think so!! I might need mine for the same thing. 0 -
I knew about the Lend Lease program but not about civilian firearm donations. Thanks, joeaf for posting.
Obviously, the Brits did not learn much after WWII.0 -
I'll just post the pertinate section of the artice. The rest is a good read, here's the link
http://www.nraila.org/media/misc/lostrts.html
As World War II ended, the British government did what it could to prevent the men who had risked their lives in defense of freedom and Britain from holding onto guns acquired during the war. Troop ships returning to England were searched for souvenir or captured rifles, and men caught attempting to bring firearms home were punished. Guns that had been donated by American civilians were collected from the Home Guard and destroyed by the British government.0 -
Ahhhhhh, that should be a war crime! 0 -
Rack Ops: Interesting reading of Englands gun laws. Concerning: "f Troop ships returning to England were searched for souvenir or captured rifles, and men caught attempting to bring firearms home were punished."
Thank God America back in the 1940's had a different view on Servicemen bringing (and sending back) foreign weapons at wars end. I sent back, and returned with many captured Kraut weapons at wars end.
NO U.S. G.I. Weapons, full autos, or so called destructive weapons were
allowed to go home (legally).0 -
quote:Originally posted by joeaf1911a1
Rack Ops: Interesting reading of Englands gun laws. Concerning: "f Troop ships returning to England were searched for souvenir or captured rifles, and men caught attempting to bring firearms home were punished."
Thank God America back in the 1940's had a different view on Servicemen bringing (and sending back) foreign weapons at wars end. I sent back, and returned with many captured Kraut weapons at wars end.
NO U.S. G.I. Weapons, full autos, or so called destructive weapons were
allowed to go home (legally).
Unfortunatly, such is no longer the case. I "liberated" a nice Browning Hi-Power during the invasion of Iraq. Kept it in my rucksack the whole time I was there. I thought it would be nice to add an heirloom to the family.
Before coming home, I was instructed to turn it in. Any attempt to bring it back to the states would result in a dishonorable discharge and a felony conviction.
A buddy of mine had a beautifully engraved Republican Guard General's sword. That too, was turned in. Likely it went to some rear-echelon pogue officer who never saw a living Iraqi soldier. [V]0 -
When you donate items to charities or other organizations do you actually expect that they will be returned to you some time down the road? The Brits asked for guns for a speciific need and when they were finished with them they (we are told) tossed them out into the Atlantic. There would be no possible way to return each and every one of those firearms to it's original American owner at the end of the war. I guess they could have loaded up a big freighter with all of those guns, sent it back to States and then sold all of the doanted guns to American citizens but that would be even worse for the people who donated the guns since someone else would be profiting from their charity. 0 -
joeaf1911a1: Thanks for posting about this. I had never heard about it and I suspect many other people have not either. This would be great to point out to any Brit wanting to rant about our gun laws. 0 -
Send a copy of this post to Tony Blair and tell him that the Brits can't pull out of Iraq because they owe us and will continue to owe us, probably forever. 0 -
Thanks Rack Ops, excellent and eye opening article. 0 -
As mentioned..the next time the Brits need help..they can go p+++ up a rope. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Highball
As mentioned..the next time the Brits need help..they can go p+++ up a rope.
+10 -
quote:Originally posted by kristov
When you donate items to charities or other organizations do you actually expect that they will be returned to you some time down the road?
no but I think they should have at least oiled em up and stored them for a rainy day, or put them in a museum exhibit.0 -
I remember reading about that in the AMREICAN RIFLEMAN, (IN MY HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY ) back in the late 50s. I believe they had pics of the piles of rifles waiting to be returned. Most had little notes tied to em, I don't remember if it was the original owners name, or those Brits that had received them. They were all well cared for and oiled up. Over the years I've seen one or two of these rifles turn up for sale, with documentation. So, maybe not all were destroyed.As most .22s in those days had no serial numbers, I doubt you could ever document those rifles.
Should we do it again? I think I would, as much as we fight the Brits over the years, they are family.0 -
quote:Originally posted by rovernut
Should we do it again? I think I would, as much as we fight the Brits over the years, they are family.
I wouldn't give them any.
If they want guns, there's a spot on the bottom of the Atlantic with thousands of 'em....0 -
It no longer becomes my responsibility to aid, protect, or give comfort to the criminally insane..such as an entire people that had just gone thru a war that very nearly destroyed them...then allowing the central government to disarm the people that FOUGHT the war.
Especially after begging a foreign country for the arms to defend the motheland.
Aiding and abeting insanity merely turns you into an enabler.
Noneof MY guns go to the criminally insane...EVER.0 -
Actually not all of our allies showed such a lack of gratitue. In the 1980s we gave millions of dollars worth or arms and sophisticated weapons to Islamic extremists (then called freedom fighters) in Afganistan. When the conflict was over they did not haul these weapons out into the Indian Ocean and dump them, the kept them. These extremists still have these arms and as any Gripe Group member will tell you a well armed Muslim is a good friend of the United States. Wait a minute, that was the old chant. The current dogma is that these people all need to be exterminated in order to bring peace and security to the earth. Of course we supplied them with weapons while telling everyone that arming Muslim extremists would lead to peace and security on the earth but Gun Broker dogma changes, sometimes daily. 0 -
Rack Ops: Your post really got to me. "Unfortunatly, such is no longer the case. I "liberated" a nice Browning Hi-Power during the invasion of Iraq. Kept it in my rucksack the whole time I was there. I thought it would be nice to add an heirloom to the family.
Before coming home, I was instructed to turn it in. Any attempt to bring it back to the states would result in a dishonorable discharge and a felony conviction.
A buddy of mine had a beautifully engraved Republican Guard General's sword. That too, was turned in. Likely it went to some rear-echelon pogue officer who never saw a living Iraqi soldier. ". Has the "big wheels" in the Military, or those who control the Military actually sunk to a new low?? Luckily, all we had to do was have a simple form signed by our Company Commander showing the make, model and S.N. of the gun/guns etc. being sent home via mail, then were checked when arriving in this country by the Treasury Dept, Bureau of Customs, then
sent to our house with NO IMPORT Duties under Public Law 633.
Matter of fact I still have one of my "invoices" from the Treasury Dept dated Oct. 8 1946 showing over a dozen items I sent home just prior to leaving the ETO including 2 rifles, 1 bayonet, and many other
articles. This was only one of the boxes sent home out of several I sent home. Not including what I personaly brought home with me.
Any doubts and will send you a copy of the letter/invoice.0 -
kristov, I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. The guns in question were LOANED to the British Government through the United States Government for the duration of the war with a promise that they would be returned to the owners after the war. If this was impossible as you contend, they shouldn't have made the promise.
You guess they could have been loaded up (on) a big freighter and sent back to the States. That's exactly how they made it to England, and half way back to the States. They didn't have any trouble keeping track of them when they were received from the Americans, or when they were issued to the Home Guard, or when they were collected from the Home Guard. Why would it have been that much harder to keep track of them as they were returned to their owners?0 -
All arms going to the UK were marked with a serial # and covered with british proofs. Like I said earlier, I personally know of one returned rifle. I have a model 69 Winchester Dual sight that has a serial # and many British proofs. It dates to the late 30s and I think it could have possibly been one of these returned guns, or maybe it was just sold in the UK and required their proofs and serial#s. I was always under the impression they were "loaned".
But that's just my low brow GB dogma intellectually challenged opinion. [B)]0 -
quote:Originally posted by JamesRK
kristov, I believe you are laboring under a misapprehension. The guns in question were LOANED to the British Government through the United States Government for the duration of the war with a promise that they would be returned to the owners after the war. If this was impossible as you contend, they shouldn't have made the promise.
You guess they could have been loaded up (on) a big freighter and sent back to the States. That's exactly how they made it to England, and half way back to the States. They didn't have any trouble keeping track of them when they were received from the Americans, or when they were issued to the Home Guard, or when they were collected from the Home Guard. Why would it have been that much harder to keep track of them as they were returned to their owners?
That may well be correct, but that is not what was posted:
British asking for American Sportsmen
to donate civilian weapons for their Civilian Defence Units
When I donate (let us say) old clothing to charity I hardly expect the person to give it back to me once he is done with it. If he gets some use from it and then wants to toss it in the trash after he is finished with it then that is his own affair.0 -
When I DONATE a suit or shirt to GOOD WILL, I have given it to them and don't expect it back. When I LOAN my truck to GOOD WILL to make a pick-up, I damn sure expect to get it back.
There was an article in The American Rifleman about the loan of civilian owned guns to Great Britton sometime back, but I have forty-one years of The American Rifleman laying around and not all of them in order. I didn't find it in 1966 - 1971, and I don't plan to make it my life's work, but I did send an eMail to NRA and asked them when it was published. If they give me an affirmative reply, I'll post a copy of it.0 -
I am not saying that you are not correct James, in fact you most likely are. Joe's post stated that the firearms were donated so why would anyone expect that they ever be returned? My understanding is that there are now a large number of M-1 rifles which were loaned to Denmark and Greece returned to the USA and this is where I see a difference. When you loan something you fully expect it to be returned to you but when you donate something it is gone for good. 0 -
kristov, I didn't mean I would post it to prove a point. It's just that a couple of people mentioned the article, and I remember reading it, so I figured if I can find it a few people might be interested in seeing it. It's probably so old the NRA can't find it anyway, but if they do I'll let you see it. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by JamesRK
kristov, I didn't mean I would post it to prove a point. It's just that a couple of people mentioned the article, and I remember reading it, so I figured if I can find it a few people might be interested in seeing it. It's probably so old the NRA can't find it anyway, but if they do I'll let you see it.
James, the article I remember seeing was relatively recent....sometime in the last 5 years or so0 -
I found this:
http://www.guncite.com/journals/okslip.html
After the fall of France and the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, Britain found itself short of arms for island defense. The Home Guard was forced to drill with canes, umbrellas, spears, pikes, and clubs. When citizens could find a gun, it was generally a sporting shotgun, which was ill-suited for most types of military use because of its short range and bulky ammunition. British government advertisements in United States newspapers and in magazines such as American Rifleman begged readers to "Send A Gun to Defend a British Home--British civilians, faced with threat of invasion, desperately need arms for the defense of their homes." The ads pleaded for "Pistols, Rifles, Revolvers, Shotguns and Binoculars from American civilians who wish to answer the call and aid in defense of British homes."[77] As a result of these ads, Pro-Allied organizations in the United States collected weapons; the National Rifle Association shipped 7,000 guns to Britain. Britain also purchased surplus World War I Enfield rifles from the United States Department of War.[78] Before the war, British authorities had refused to allow domestic manufacture of the Thompson submachine gun because it was "a gangster gun,"[79] but when the war broke out, large numbers of American-made Thompsons were shipped to Britain, where they were dubbed "tommie guns."[80]
Prime Minister Winston Churchill's book Their Finest Hour details the arrival of the shipments. Churchill personally supervised the deliveries to ensure that they were sent on fast ships, and distributed first to Home Guard members in coastal zones. Churchill thought that the American donations (p.418)were "entirely on a different level from anything we have transported across the Atlantic except for the Canadian division itself." Churchill warned an advisor that "the loss of these rifles and field-guns [if the transport ships were sunk by Nazi submarines] would be a disaster of the first order." He later recalled that "[w]hen the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms, special trains were waiting in all the ports to receive their cargoes." "The Home Guard in every county, in every town, in every village, sat up all through the night to receive them .... By the end of July we were an armed nation ... a lot of our men and some women had weapons in their hands."[81]
As World War II ended[82] the British government did what it could to prevent the men who had risked their lives in defense of freedom and Britain from holding onto guns acquired during the war. Troop ships returning to England were searched for souvenir or captured rifles and men caught attempting to bring firearms home were punished. Guns that had been donated by American civilians were collected from the Home Guard and destroyed by the British government.[83] In spite of these measures, large quantities of firearms still slipped into Britain, where many of them remain to this day in attics and under floor boards. At least some British gun owners, like their United States counterparts in today's gun-confiscating jurisdictions such as New Jersey and New York City, were beginning to conclude that their government did not trust them, and that their government could not be trusted to deal with them fairly. In 1946, the Home Secretary announced a policy change: henceforth, self-defense would not be considered a good reason for being granted a Firearms Certificate.[84]
According to this article (which looks very in depth), it looks like the NRA collected 7000 firearms from US citizens and then donated the firearms to the Brits. If anything was ever said about returning these 7000 donated frearms to the USA at the end of the war the article does not make mention of it. I was left with the impression from reading these posts that we sent a lot more than 7000 privately held firearms to the Brits, but 7000 is still a sizeable number.0
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